When the roiling, volcanic casserole of beef and baby octopus arrives at your table at Sui Tofu, your jaw may drop. It's a 12-inch cast-stone pan with quarter-inch walls, and it overflows with noodles, tofu, eggs, vegetables, beef and octopus in a bright red chile broth. The contents actively burble - it's the music of a rustic stew.

The menu indicates that the dish feeds two, but you might feel as if someone has brought you a 12-inch deep-dish pizza, saying, "This is for two."

The dish, bul nok jun gol, defines the generous style at this restaurant on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, where a 2-mile strip stretching north into Sunnyvale is the center of Korean culture in the Bay Area. A short two blocks north of Sui Tofu are Kyo-po, a large Korean supermarket; Hanmi Bank; the offices of Korea Central Daily newspaper; beauty salons; video shops; and one storefront after another of Korean barbecue and tofu houses. Here you can shop, read, rent, beautify, bank, and eat, eat and eat - in Korean.

There is no better way to replicate home than to read a newspaper, rent a video and fill your belly with food. Beyond that, immigrant communities demand superior value and copious servings, and Sui Tofu delivers on both fronts.

Unlike most local Korean barbecue and tofu establishments, Sui Tofu strives for rustic and historical connections. Its walls are hung with signs in Korean explaining the nutritional or herbal value of various ingredients. The menu lists authentic choices, although some are standard tofu and barbecue dishes. When my Korean friend from Los Angeles first read Sui Tofu's menu, she said, "I haven't had some of these dishes since my mom made them."

The tofu and dumplings are made on site, by hand. So yes, tofu in all its guises and dumplings are sure bets here. The tofu is as sweet and same-day fresh as it should be, whether it's cooked in a soupy broth or creamy-cold with a spicy dressing in the complimentary Banchan (small places) that arrive before a meal. Soft, silken tofu appears in many of the soups and stews, and is a welcome, nutritious and homey element.

All of the dishes are translated into English, and some are also phrased in Chinese, so ordering is not difficult. Although much of the wall decor is made up simply of panels of Korean script, the interior of the restaurant is comfortable and functional. Photos of rustic urns for aging kimchi attest to an authentic link and ambience that many Asian restaurants eschew. Sui Tofu is at once a family place and a destination restaurant for Korean and Chinese professionals in Silicon Valley.

Sui Tofu opens at 7 a.m. on weekends and 9 a.m. on weekdays, and serves breakfast, all day long. The cornerstone of the breakfast menu is jook, translated as gruel, porridge or congee. None of these words are sexy synonyms, nor should they be. It's rice cooked to a creamy consistency, and Sui Tofu makes 10 variations, from beef to chicken and ginseng to pine nut and black sesame ( $7.99-$10.99). Each big bowl serving comes with five condiments - tiny dishes of intense kimchi, shredded beef and glazed soy beans, among others.

Many Asians will tell you it's "sick food," the kind of stuff your mother makes for you when you're home sick, but it's also rib-sticking fare accompanied by boldly flavored nibbles, and is good for anyone seeking comfort.

Like everything else at Sui Tofu, the serving is large. I would wish for the porridge itself to be brothier rather than creamy, and hot rather than lukewarm, but this is still excellent value. It makes for a light lunch or an excellent late supper.

Porridge aside, the heart of the menu is in the two sections labeled "Korea Table." Here you'll find the bul nok jun gol, the beef and octopus stone pot ($24.99). The kimchi stew ($9.99) is another bubbling pot that marries meat and seafood. The authentic rendition should include a whole fish, I am told, and Sui Tofu takes the shortcut with canned tuna; still the broth sings with deep flavors as only the combination of seafood and land food can - all of it through a veil of red chile.

From the "Fish & Meat" section, the standout dish over three visits was go deng uh gui, a whole, crisped pan-fried mackerel ($9.99). This is one of the best versions of this dish I've had, although I can't say the same for the other fish preparations. But the barbecue chicken ($8.99) is tender and full flavored, especially, as the manager recommended, ordered spicy rather than medium.

Some esoteric preparations, such as a roasted honeycomb tripe dish ($14.99), and hae jan gook ($8.99), a soup-stew of beef blood and beef tripe, are acquired tastes. However, another traditional dish is more approachable - noodles in an ice- cold broth, which reads simply "Cold Noodle" on the menu ($8.99). This is a quintessential fire-and-ice juxtaposition. Noodles are served in a broth chilled by grated ice - a savory slushy, if you will. Ask for the usual quartet of condiments - a sinus-clearing mustard, vinegar, sesame seeds and bright red hot sauce - and add them generously until the broth turns the color of tomato soup. The chill of the broth against the burn of the chiles takes you to new gustatory heights.

The dish can be ordered with any of four kinds of noodles: green, brown (buckwheat), sweet potato and arrowroot. The green (ka si oh ga pee), which is made from a healing root in the Korean nutraceutical world, is actually dramatically green-black. These, as well as the buckwheat (mea mill), have a springy quality that redefines al dente, and are quite fun to eat. Again, there's enough in one bowl for several diners to share.

Because it is a workhorse restaurant, Sui Tofu's execution can be rough. Huge quantities of high-value dishes are cranked out of the kitchen all day. Some of the seafood dishes we ordered were not as fresh as we would like, and the hae mul pa jun, a large pancake of seafood that comes on a cast-iron griddle ($10.99), was soft rather than crisp, and bland. While the pot stickers (goon man du, $6.99) are made on site, they are pale in seasoning, and you have to dunk them completely in the proffered sauce. There's plenty of beef in the beef and baby octopus stone pot, but you have to hunt for it because the thin slices are clumped together.

And yet it is a great dish, although I would have preferred it with more of the aromatic chrysanthemum greens scattered on top - and at the price it's a steal. The staff keeps refreshing the banchan (kimchi and condiments) as soon as they're eaten. Even though the level of English is basic at best, and the already harried staff shies away from using it, the generosity here is as big as the dishes.